Harry Potter: After The War
by ZACHDABOSSSS
Summary: I doubt it will be canon compliant, but my take on what happened after the Battle of Hogwarts. Working on continuing as of now, I don't know if I'll get anything good. Discontinued if I can't. I'll delete this when I do.
1. Prologue

Ms. Jones of Number 10, Grimmauld Place, was looking out her window. Insomnia had hit her again, and at the moment she was single, so she had nothing to get her to sleep. Normally she listened to music, but she had recently gotten a roommate who had expressed concern about it.

It was July 14, 1998, just a couple months after the extremely mysterious actions of the first almost half of the year and the last five or so months of the past year. Also, the period of time where excessive amounts of people had stood watching the gap between 11 and 13, Grimmauld Place had passed without explanation. It was a curious time.

She knew a crazy amount of people who had died without explanation, sending most of London into panic. She herself had taken one extremely large shopping trip and then hid in her own house for months.

So she was curious, as always, when the man who ran past every day came and went. He was wearing the same robe type style that Luke Skywalker was in for the majority of the Star Wars movie that had come out a decade and a half ago, The Return of the Jedi. She had been a kid, and therefore seen it an excessive amount. She still remembered most of the details. He had tight black robe-like things on, though they could be another dark color, as he always passed at night. His face was always hidden in shadow, but he was always looking everywhere, his head was constantly looking around, as if he had to be observant at all times. She guessed he was a criminal, a cop, or in the army. He showed all the traits of all of them. But why would a criminal go running at night? This ruled out that.

He always seemed to appear out of nowhere, just one time he was there and others he wasn't. She wondered if it was a trick of the light, but he always seemed to appear from two houses down, pretty much where number 13 was. Curious.


	2. The Beginning of the End

Harry Potter had not seen his friends in over two months. He was living at 12 Grimmauld Place, in total solitude. He had reinstated the Fidelius Charm, making himself the secret keeper as he had seen Bill do and telling no one of the existence of the house. No Weasley, no McGonagall, no one. He hadn't even called Kreacher back.

The most conversation he had had since the Battle was with the cashier at the local market.

He had run away. Woken up early the next day, dawned his invisibility cloak, and ran. He didn't want anyone to see him. He didn't want to see himself.

He had broken every mirror in the house.

But he jogged every night, just to keep himself sane. Otherwise he would just sit there all day. He made his own food, and read, but that was it. He had taken a subscription the the Daily Prophet, using the name Regulus Black. Nobody had sent any questions, and the owls guessed where to go the first time, correctly. So he was fine with it.

It was exactly 73 days and nineteen hours since the Battle. Yes, he kept count. Yes, he was ashamed that he did.

He had gone to every single funeral, under the cloak so he didn't have to talk to anyone. But those only lasted a few weeks. The most painful one had been Fred, where he had to look at the pained expressions on every Weasley's face. They probably hated him, as they thought he hadn't come. So he didn't make contact with them. He planned on sending them a short note on his birthday, telling them not to send any letters, and that he had set the wards of "where he was staying" to only let the Prophet owl in. So far, they had sent nothing. But they might send him birthday letters. He had given up on the world, and the world had given up on finding him. For a while now.

He was unemployed, with no plans of changing that status. With the Black Vaults and the Potter Vaults, he could buy half of England, if he wanted. He only spent it on food.

So he continued to run. He saw Ms. Jones Of Number 13 looking out her window at him, not a rare occurrence. She nodded at him but he gave no signs that he had seen her. And he ran. Away from his problems. Away from life. Or at least he wished. But alas, he had to go back. So he took three right turns and a left to get back on Grimmauld Place. He vaguely noticed that Ms. Jones wasn't in her window anymore, but he was pretty tired. This was a much longer run than usual, and the day's cleaning had been surprisingly difficult and long, and it took him much longer to finish than normal. It seemed no one, including Kreacher, had touched the room for a long time. And he turned into Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

He walked through the door, once more making a small mental note to fill in the spot of the wall that he had removed in order to get off Walburga Black's painting. He only knew that name from the hours he had studied the family tree tapestry. He had blown off multiple names, including Walburga, Lucius, and Bellatrix, and restored those such as Alphard, who had been blown off posthumously after giving Sirius gold in his will, Marius, who was a squib, and Phineas, not the headmaster, but his (the headmaster's) son, who had supported Muggle rights. He had left off Sirius and Andromeda because he knew they both hated the house. He had never talked to Andromeda, but in his fifth year Sirius had given small hints of her (Andromeda's) personality. He also noted that Dorea Black had married Charlus Potter, whom Harry had looked up and found that Charlus was a distant ancestor of his own. So Harry was related to Sirius.

He did all this in the amazing amount of spare time he had. He had a large library with many family tree books, and he had the tapestry. He was that bored.

He walked up to Sirius' room, which he had claimed because it made him feel closer to his godfather, as if he were there with him. Harry had looked through Sirius' stuff multiple times and the picture of the four Marauders and a picture of the four Marauders with Lily and two people he had identified as Mary MacDonald and Marlene McKinnon were on his side table. He carried Moody's picture of the Order of the Phoenix he had found in the kitchen with him at all times in his pocket.

He took off his shoes and put them beside the bed, and then stripped to his boxers. He then collapsed on to bed and just barely had time to pull the covers over himself before he fell asleep.

The next morning when he awoke he had a familiar pang of loneliness, one he had almost every morning, but he shook it off. Everybody probably hated him by now. He had, after all, gotten over fifty students and adults killed, good men and women. Including three of the purest hearts he had been lucky enough to know. Lupin, Tonks, Fred. They had died because he was too stupid to turn himself in, he should have figured it out earlier…

 _Don't think like that._

He had pretty much had to repeat this simple phrase every morning when he blamed himself, which was every morning.

He got dressed, then walked down the stairs to prepare himself breakfast. He had a slice of toast and some orange juice, pretty much routine. He grabbed the paper and walked back upstairs to the library, and sat in his least favorite chair. He did this so he could movie halfway through and appreciate his favorite chair that much more. He didn't want to take anything for granted anymore, even having a decent chair. Hell, he had died. And he still had the scar on his chest, identical but larger to the one on his forehead.

He read the paper for a while, but put it down as he got to page three, because of there was nothing excited in the first three pages there would be nothing in the paper.

Harry had gone to the closest bookstore and gotten some decent fictions, and he grabbed a novel he had heard about, called Animal Farm by George Orwell. It was about all the animals on a farm revolting as a cause of poor leadership, but after the revolt the pigs got power hungry and placed themselves in charge, using lies and trickery to make the animals believe they had it good. He knew it had to represent something, so after a bit of research he found that it represented the Russian Revolution, with many characters symbolizing different parts of the revolution. He finished it in about four hours. It was a good read, he decided, worthy of a read again another day. He put it back on the shelf and rose. Lunch. He always ate lunch when he was hungry or finished the book, with no routine.

He went downstairs and made himself a quick sandwich, staring into space as he ate.

Time to clean. He pulled out his wand and retreated up the stairs a flight onto the ground floor, and went into a room he had not marked.

He marked every room he had cleaned out and thrown out things he didn't like with an X drawn with chalk on the door. This room had two couches, a desk, and a lot of clutter just around. He figured he would start with the couches.

After about ten minutes of nothing exciting, he figured that they must have cleaned the room in his fifth year. So he walked out, conjuring a piece of chalk, and marked the door. He vanished the chalk and walked out. He looked at the clock and was slightly surprised when he saw it was only about three o'clock. He shrugged, and walked down to the kitchen, starting to do the dishes. That took him a very long time, as he had put off doing them for a couple weeks now. He was normally occupied with cleaning. Some dishes were bad enough that he had to resort to Scourgify, but he liked washing by hand, as it gave him something to do.

When he was done he saw the clock once more and saw it was four o'clock. He ate a small snack and retreated to Sirius' room. He wanted to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow, to get an owl. He had put it off for a while, as he knew no owl would or could replace Hedwig, but this was enough. Caring for the owl would give him another thing to do. He started writing in the journal he kept.

 _Another boring day. Toast and orange juice for breakfast, then read Animal Farm. Pretty good book. Only news in the prophet is a new book that should be a hit, dunno what it's called, only that the author is named "Joanne Rowling". Never heard of her. Ate lunch, then encountered an empty room. Finally washed the dishes, after a couple weeks. Then I came up here. Anyway, I'm going to continue this after dinner and my run._

So he put the journal down, and lie in bed for another five or so minutes before going downstairs to get dinner. He lived a life where he went to bed late and slept late, so he ate dinner early. At Hogwarts and the Burrow dinner was at six, but he ate at five. So he put together a tiny dinner of Mac n' Cheese that he had bought from a local supermarket. It was an American lunch, but he normally didn't eat normal. When he finished he changed and walked out of the house, locking it. And he started running. He went right, and went slightly longer than he normally did, which meant about 10 kilometers in a loop. Quidditch has trained him well, but he still didn't know why Oliver had made them run laps. He saw Ms. Jones in the window once again, and, surprising himself, waved.

She looked surprised as well, but waved back. But this meant her attention was on him, so he ran past 12 Grimmauld Place until he was out of her line of sight, then Disillusioned himself and walked back to the house. He removed the charm when he had shut the door behind him, and retreated upstairs. He walked into Sirius' room, sat on the bed, and grabbed the journal. He continued the page that he had started earlier.

 _Done. Mac and Cheese for dinner, it wasn't half bad for an American dish. My favorite is still cheeseburgers. Slightly longer run today, 10k. Anyway, I'm off to bed._

So he climbed into bed, but not having stayed up very late, lie there for several hours, thinking about life in general, until he finally fell asleep. If he didn't have anything exciting happen soon, he was going to kill himself. He fell asleep wondering if Avada Kedavra would work on himself, and dreamt of Sirius. He woke up the next day in cold sweat.

His first thought was remembering to go to Diagon Alley, but figured he should eat breakfast first. So he went downstairs and made himself yet another slice of toast, and then stepped into the fireplace. He grabbed some floo powder, and tossed it down, saying, "The Leaky Cauldron". He always was extra clear, because he would never forget his first floo trip in his second year.

He came out at the pub, and stepped out of the floo. He immediately walked out the back door and tapped the correct brick to get into Diagon Alley. When the wall folded out on (or in) itself, he stepped in, and decided that he would stick around. The cheery atmosphere was too good to miss, even risking being seen. He would go to Eeylops later. So he went to the new ice cream shop, which someone else had started in the same spot as Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream. He ordered chocolate on chocolate, and sat just looking into the crowd.

He would go to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes next, as it would no doubt be crowded, if it was still the same as two years ago. So he finished his Ice Cream, and walked to 93 Diagon Alley. He couldn't see the inside from the posters on the outside, and didn't think he needed to. So he stepped in.

 _"Harry!"_

He froze. He had walked into an almost empty shop. And covering the cash register and staring at him was Ginny Weasley.


	3. Encounters in Diagon Alley

_He froze. He had walked into an almost empty shop. And covering the cash register and staring at him was Ginny Weasley._

She rushed out from behind the counter, and started walking towards him, frowning.

Harry heard George yell from a back room, "Ginny, why are you yelling?"

Ginny ignored him, just when Harry recovered some sense and ran for it. But Ginny had her wand out in a second. "Colloportus!"

Harry scowled and turned back to Ginny. She had a determined look on her face. The same look from his sixth year when he had…

No. He needed to leave. He may break his life of solitude if he stayed and talked to Ginny. He played dumb.

"Excuse me, do I know you?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Nice try. Follow me."

He didn't follow her, but turned, seemingly interested in a shelf. She apparently didn't realize it, as she kept walking, into a back room. And Harry had his wand in his hand. He muttered a small countercharm he had learned in his sixth year, breaking the locking charm. And he ran for it. Out of the shop.

He heard Ginny yell from behind him, but he kept running. And into the hustle-bustle of Diagon Alley. She wouldn't be able to find him in the crowd. She couldn't abandon her working post either.

So he cast a small Notice-Me-Not charm on himself and turned into the Owl Emporium, getting rid of it as soon as he was inside. He looked around. Owl upon owl lined the walls, most sleeping. The manager came up to him. "Hello, How may I be of assistance today?"

Harry smiled at him. "I need an owl that is consistent, and takes up a lot of time. And not a Snowy Owl." They reminded him too much of Hedwig.

The manager nodded. "Those categories probably fit best with the Barn and Brown owls. If you want I can show you where they are."

Harry shook his head. He wanted to feel a connection, without an employee edging him on. He walked over to the Barn Owls, the the Brown Owls. He felt no connection at any owl he saw. So he walked to the screech owls. Still nothing. Tawny owls? Nope.

He sighed. Last resort, Snowy Owls. He walked over to them. And immediately he felt it. On a very specific owl, one a good size. It looked at him with wide eyes, but that was probably because owls always had wide eyes.

He picked it up, and brought it to the manager. "I decided on this one."

The manager seemed momentarily surprised, but got over it. Ah, yes. Her mother was sold to the biggest man I've ever seen! Must've been ten foot!"

Harry swallowed. Hagrid. This owl was Hedwig's daughter. He quickly picked out a cage and got some food, then paid and walked out.

He saw a few redheads running out of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and his eyes widened. Ginny had told on him.

He had frozen too long. Percy had come too close. He had been spotted. Percy yelled to his mother. And them plus Arthur, Ron, Bill, George, and Ginny came running.

Harry sprinted for it. He quickly used his wand to transport his owl and owl items to Grimmauld Place. He took a chance and looked back. They had lost him. Ginny was still running, but the others were checking other various stores. She saw him look back. "HARRY JAMES POTTER GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!" She screamed.

This seemed to have the opposite effect of what she had apparently expected. Everybody turned towards her.

"Harry Potter is here?"

"He hasn't been seen in months!"

Harry continued running. People saw him. He was hoarded. But he pushed through. So did Ginny. But years of running away from Dudley payed off. He was faster.

He quickly entered the Leaky Cauldron and grabbed floo powder. She came in just as he stumbled into the fireplace. Her eyes narrowed and she sprinted towards him. He said "Number 12 Grimmauld Place" and disappeared as she was about a meter away from him. The last look he saw was betrayal.

And he stumbled into Number 12 Grimmauld Place feeling slightly guilty.


End file.
